Re: CD ripping (was: Re: [PLUG] un-upgrade in debian)

[gabriel rosenkoetter <gr@eclipsed.net>]

On Mon, Sep 16, 2002 at 06:14:17AM -0400, Arthur S. Alexion wrote:
> Thanks all for the suggestions.  I'm starting in a vacuum here and 
> wasn't sure where to start.  I wonder whether the sony memory sticks 
> work as I am considering a clie, too.

Being as they're proprietary and largely undocumented, they're maybe
not your best choice. (Unless that's changed since I decided there
was no way I was buying into a Sony Vaio, no matter how pretty they
were, considering how anti-open source Sony is. The second part of
that hasn't changed; cf, DRM ignoring everything that's not Windows,
and that only grudgingly.)

Fwiw, I had (well, still have) a portable CD player that also read
MP3s (and, apparently, Windows Media too, though I've never had a
way to find out) from an ISO-9660 CD-ROM. Worked just fine, till
the laser up and failed. (It was a Rio Volt. The MP3 interface was
decent, but the physical construction felt a bit flimsy. If I were
to buy a new one, I'd get one from someone who had proven that they
knew what they were doing with consumer electronics, rather than
someone who had proven that they knew what they were doing with
MP3, as I did the first time.)

I haven't bothered replacing it, though, as my aging IBM ThinkPad
works just fine in my car (a '94 Jetta with the then-top-of- line
VW stereo, which includes a stereo 1/8" jack, perfect for stuff
like this--far better quality than you get off of those tape deck
adapters). For long road trips, I just charge up a few extra
batteries and toss them in the back seat. I haven't bothered yet,
but yet another car localization would be to mount everything that
matters (as in, anything that's not /tmp or /var) read-only (I'm
pretty sure apmd can be configured to do things like this on power
events--on battery, low batter, whatever--but I've never bothered to
play with it, as the video in my ThinkPad is ornery and
undocumented, and using apmd is a good way to break both video and
audio when the laptop wakes up from sleep).

I suppose that a laptop works just fine in a car, but doesn't do
much for, say, the jogger, though. (Hey--I don't run, but I do swim.
Are there water proof MP3 devices yet? There are certainly swimmers
radios, seems like a logical step...)

-- 
gabriel rosenkoetter
gr@eclipsed.net

Attachment: pgpa1403NI7b1.pgp
Description: PGP signature